Passenger seats for vehicles such as aircraft, buses, trains, boats, vehicles, and the like are often designed to include a restraint device, such as a seat belt. The seat belt straps are often anchored to a location on the passenger seat assembly. In many cases, the anchor device that is connected to the seat belt strap is a plate with a hole through which a bolt is inserted to secure the plate to the passenger seat.
In other cases, the anchor device may be a snap hook anchor that is connected to an eye bolt or other plate having a hole therethrough that is fixedly secured to the passenger seat. Because the snap hook anchor is often oriented to be parallel to the flat surface of the strap, it may necessary for the portion of the plate that connects to the snap hook anchor to be oriented 90 degrees relative to the portion of the plate that connects to the passenger seat assembly (in cases where the plate is mounted vertically to the passenger seat assembly).
Typically, the 90 degree arrangement is achieved by bonding two plates to each other in a perpendicular arrangement, which can result in a potential failure point at the point where the two plates are joined. Furthermore, the flattened shape of the horizontally oriented plate does not typically provide any protection against tampering or inadvertent disconnection of the snap hook when subjected to abuse.
In certain cases, it may be desirable to provide a linking device that is integrally formed as a single piece construction that also is designed to provide some protection against inadvertent unhooking or tampering with the seat belt connection.